Starry night

These year two and three children have looked closely at the work of Van Gogh. We observed the quality of his line work and found many types of lines. We also talked about how the artist showed space or depth in his work. 

We also learnt about how Van Gogh made his stars look like those he had seen from early photos taken by astronomers at the time.

The children used frottage, wax resist and collage to create our mixed media art work.

Firstly the children were asked to fold the paper in half longwise and draw a wavy line for the horizon. Then draw an odd number of stars surrounded with swirling, dashed lines. 

The children found a textured surface from objects around the room ( I had a pile of convently located objects with textures handy for them to use ) and used frottage ( textured rubbing) to transfer the textural pattern onto their land. These were then painted using watercolour technique of wax resist ( we used the good old tempera discs ) 

Next step was to use collage techniques to add houses and trees in a way that shows depth, just like Van Gogh did.

 

Finally they had to select a backing mount board that enhanced their art work. Some children found that their favourite couloir didn't really work with their actual painting. Around their work they are creating a boarder using pre cut mosaic squares.

They should be finished by the end of next week - we had a little Easter detour with children voting to do a quick pre Easter decoration activity because it is after all the day before Easter and the arts are how we celebrate our culture and special events after all!